Sting Ray City

The second day of diving was a lot like the first - up at 6:45, bus by 7:45, underwater by 8:00. This time, we dove Round Rock, also located just offshore of Seven Mile Beach, virtually the same area as yesterday. My regulator started free-flowing as I descended and I thought I was going to have to abort the dive, but the ship's captain provided me with a back-up, and I was quickly back underwater with the rest. Like Trinity Caves, Round Rock featured a lot of narrow underwater canyons, plus a couple small caves beneath the reef you could swim through.
After Round Rock, we dove Chain Link Reef, named for, well, a long link chain dropped by a cruise ship which was fast becoming part of the reef itself. We found a large green moray under an overhang, but couldn't coax him to come out.

After lunch, we got back on the bus but instead of driving back to Seven Mile Beach, we headed for the infamous Sting Ray City. Sting Ray City is located in the North Sound of Grand Cayman Island near the protecting reef. Although the water is only about 12 feet deep, it makes a great dive because it is loaded with, well, sting rays. Apparently, fisherman used to dump their excess bait in the area as they returned from their trips, and the rays gathered like seagulls at an oceanside dump. Anyway, when you dive there now, the rays come to you looking for food, and basically swarm all over you.

They're actually very gentle creatures, almost silky on the underside and with a texture like fine sandpaper on the top. The females get to be almost four feet across, so as they come gliding over you underwater, it gets your attention. Their mouths are on their underside, and as I was pushing one particularly curious one out of my face, my finger got into its mouth and it gave me a nasty little bite. They don't have teeth, thank god, but they do have plates and it felt like my finger was suddenly inserted into a vice grip.

But the real highlight of the day - in fact of the trip - was a free-swimming green moray that came out to see what all the commotion was about. It's rare to see a moray venture out too far from his cave, and not a little alarming - they're vicious looking creatures with lots of sharp teeth. But this guy was like a big green puppy dog - he went up to each diver separately checking us out and allowed us to pet, stroke, fondle and caress him (although we all kept our fingers away from his mouth!). This old fellow, though, was nearly blind, with grey cloudy cataracts in his eyes. His flesh was soft and had a texture like portobello mushrooms. We almost forgot about the sting rays. After a while of playing with him, he apparently became bored and swam away, and I returned to the boat.